get cape, wear cape, fly
by Los Desperados
Summary: We are all searching for someone whose demons play well with ours. Bass/Jo. AU.
1. lady sings the blues

**status **ongoing  
**background **post-2x14 (_SPN_), pre-series (_Revolution_)  
**notice **This is my first attempt at a crossover ever. But I've recently finished SPN and Revolution, and I can say I'm a hardcore fan of both—although I've been watching SPN for years. And since I ship Jo with pretty much everyone, this was bound to happen. Go easy on my Bass; he needs love. Cover image by me.

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**i. lady sings the blues**

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After the fiasco with the Winchester brothers in Duluth, Jo figures that she can't really stay there a minute longer. The bar is a mess, bottles are broken and the window is smashed. And it's not like she can _explain _what happened without getting hauled by the cops—or locked away in a mental institution.

So, without further ado, she picks up what little stuff she has, empties the bar's cash register, and with a scrambled _sorry _on a dirty napkin, she catches the next bus out of the state.

She spends the first two hours of the trip crying silently into her jacket, because she was just beginning to like the place when those goddamn Winchesters marched in and destroyed her life—_again_. Duluth was a nice city, her employer was an old man with a heart of gold, and she had even established some sort of friendship with the other two barmaids that worked shifts at the bar along with her.

It was not an idyllic life, but it was _her _life, and it was the first time she had built something for herself and by herself—all the way from the ground to the top.

So, she cries. She laments the loss of something that was entirely her own and was taken away from her so harshly. Because Jo Harvelle is, first and foremost, a girl. She might not like accepting that, and definitely doesn't take kindly to others thinking of her as such, but at the end of the day, she's just a runaway girl with high hopes and dreams of becoming a hunter, just like her daddy.

Jo cries for her mom, too. Not because Ellen's all alone, running the Roadhouse and babysitting Ash, but because _she_'s all alone because of her. Because she doesn't understand — she never did — her need to do this, to hunt. It's the only thing she has left to remind her of her father, and Ellen just doesn't understand that.

Because she has had her fill of Bill Harvelle back when he was still alive. She has had her chance to get to know him, to memorize him, to_ love_ him. She doesn't know what it's like to want to do the things he did because that's the only way she can feel close to him.

Ellen doesn't understand, so Jo stops trying to explain.

Instead, she silently weeps for everything that goes wrong in her life when all she's trying to do is right, as the miles pile up between her and Duluth.

It turns out that the bus goes to Chicago. That's good. Chicago is a bigass city you can easily lose yourself in and Jo just wants to get lost right now. On the same day she sets foot in Chicago, she drinks herself into a stupor and she fucks a stranger into oblivion, just because she can.

And because of Dean. Because it always comes down to Dean in her life. Dean, with the pretty eyes and full lips and the soul that's kinda rotting inside his body. Dean, who doesn't even have the decency to text her.

_Sam's okay. We got the demon. Take care._

She's not asking for a proclamation of undying love. Hell, she's not even asking for Dean's attention. She just wants his acknowledgement. That she's a person of her own. Not just Ellen's runaway daughter, Bill's little girl, the blonde who serves beers at the Roadhouse. She wants to be acknowledged as _Jo_.

But she isn't. Won't be, for a long time. So she drinks her sorrows away and fucks her heart to numbness and the morning after, she's already on another bus.

Two days later, Jo plants her feet firmly on the ground of Jasper, Indiana.


	2. welcome to never land

**status **ongoing  
**background **late season 2 (_SPN)_, pre-series (_Revolution_)  
**notice **I like Jo. She's one of the most intriguing female characters I've ever come across. So, I'll be exploring the changes in her character through the years to a great extent, along with her relationship with Bass. Next chapter will be all Bass, to be fair.

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**ii. welcome to never land**

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Jo doesn't know what compelled her to get off the bus at Jasper exactly, but she decides to not dwell on it for too long.

At first sight, Jo doesn't like Jasper. It's one of those backwater towns that have enough population for a newcomer to manage to blend in without too much trouble. Unfortunately, it's also one of those towns where people mostly know each other and fucking smile at each other down the street and she hates it, because it's too much like home.

And home is Ellen and Ash and the Roadhouse and grumpy hunters and cheap beer and the dusty picture of a man in a cowboy hat holding a blonde five-year-old with pigtails and a front tooth gap in his arms. Home is not something she wants to be reminded of at the time being.

However, Jo is first and foremost stubborn as Hell (courtesy of Ellen's genes), and she won't tuck tail and run before giving the town a chance, no matter how indifferent it might be to her, just because she's haunted by the ghosts of her past life.

She sends Ellen a postcard, scrambling a short note — _I'm okay, taking a trip east_ — behind a worn-out picture of the Statue of Liberty, knowing full well that her mom will see right through her scheme. But at this point, they've come to a silent agreement that the simple knowledge that Jo is still alive and kicking is enough.

And maybe Ash is tracking her phone, but that's debatable.

Sick of staying in dusty motels that have clearly not seen better days in like _ever_, Jo rents an apartment, for quite possibly the first time in her life. Or—to be accurate—she rents a pathetic excuse of an apartment.

Jo is not a person of many possessions, but the apartment is hardly spacious enough to accommodate her and her few personal belongings. However, what it lacks in space, it makes up in coziness, and a huge veranda that Jo swears is twice the size of her abode. But she's always liked porches and balconies, enjoyed walking barefoot in the back porch of their house at the back of the Roadhouse, so she takes it with no second thought. Settling in has become second nature by now, and she's out looking for a job the very same evening.

Despite the fact that she's never been particularly lucky, having no rabbit's foot or a four-leaf clover handy and definitely having been born under a bad sign, Jo has never had trouble getting a job. It might be the fact that she looks like the innocent girl-next-door that bakes chocolate chipped cookies and helps the elderly cross the street, but she doesn't care nearly enough to ponder on it.

Whatever the reason behind it, she finds a waitressing job at a local diner with practised ease, and from what little she can assume by a quick scanning of the place, the customers in Jasper tip generously. So, maybe, _maybe_, she can make a living there.

Jo still hates Jasper, of course. But it's slowly starting to warm up to her. The Yankees obviously don't take well to newcomers disturbing the peace of their hometown, but she's kind of a Yankee herself — born and raised in east Nebraska — and she's been told that she makes a great impression to strangers. That much she can make out by the way the rest of the staff in the diner welcome her in their small family.

The first week passes by quickly, as Jo tries to adjust to the new balance in her life, and slowly begins to piece herself back together.

She sighs as she fastens her apron behind her back, plastering a bright smile on her face that's not entirely fake. New town, new opportunities.

_It could be fun,_ she thinks.

Then, Sebastian Monroe walks through the door.


	3. the days before you came

**status **ongoing  
**background **late season 2 (_SPN)_, pre-series (_Revolution)_  
**notice **You know, every time I publish a multi-chaptered story, I always make this promise to myself to never update unless I'm a few chapters ahead in writing. And I always flunk it. Jeremy Munday is making my life so hard right now, with his Translation Studies and whatnot. I struggled to squeeze this chapter out, so I'm not overly fond of it. I couldn't decide on the proper depiction of Bass. I apologize beforehand for any out-of-character moments. He is a tough one to portray. On the bright side, I would like to thank all of you for the lovely reviews. You rock.

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**iii. the days before you came**

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Bass returns to the States about three months before Jo decides to settle down in Jasper.

Between medicals and psych evaluations that find him guilty of post-traumatic stress disorder, the time to stroll around the town in inspection of what has changed in the thirty months of his absence is quite limited.

And he would be lying if he said that he wanted to, anyway.

He is mentally a step away from blowing his brains out, he can barely sleep, and his family's excessive concerns are not helping at all.

In all honesty, the only thing he needs at the moment is Miles. But the fact that his best friend is thousands of miles overseas, possibly in the middle of an operation that has the potential to have him sent back home in a matchbox, makes Bass' healing a tad more difficult and it's not very comforting.

Not after he lost his team in a suicidal bombing in Iraq not four months ago.

It's his sister Cynthia that ultimately manages to beat enough sense into him to get Bass out of the basement — where he spends most of his days brooding or beating the shit out of an old punching bag — and actually have him take a walk around town. The familiar surroundings might help in making him feel more at home, she says, and although Bass doubts anything can bring him even the slightest peace of mind right now, he humors her.

He has always had a soft spot for his little sister after all.

What Bass doesn't expect when he ventures out in town that morning, is meeting someone who can catch and hold his attention long enough for him to actually forget about the ghosts that've been haunting him for the better part of the past few months, even for a brief moment.

He is scarred and flawed and ten kinds of crazy; he shouldn't be able to get enchanted by the girl with the golden locks and wide eyes that seem to hold so many secrets.

He doesn't know her name — doesn't dare ask either; not on the first day that he takes a seat at the diner she works, anyway — but he can tell that she's not a local. She seems to be around his age, after all, and Jasper is not that big a town for people of the same age to not know each other.

Plus, she's really rude, and most of the girls from around here have been raised to be gentle and polite, with constant smiles plastered on their faces.

This girl's facial expression, on the other hand, seems to be stuck on a frown.

She pulls a nine-to-five shift at the diner, Bass finds out. Surprisingly, he finds himself sneaking out in the mornings for a piece of pumpkin pie at _Jessie's_ _Diner _in an alarmingly increasing rate.

What surprises him even more, is that she brings out the person he was before Iraq. The smooth-talking, charming bastard that didn't hesitate in chatting up a lady because his demons were dancing in the back.

Bass can tell that she's not precisely happy about it.


	4. your face sounds familiar

**status **ongoing  
**background **still in late season 2 (_SPN_), pre-series (_Revolution_)  
**notice **So, I finally brainwashed my cousin into watching Revolution, and I got to watch the last four episodes of the first season with her. Add the premiere of the second season to that mix and you've got my inspiration for this chapter. Why did I abandon Bass for so long, we shall never know. But I'm really struggling with these mid-chapters so bear with me. In this chapter, the two lovebirds officially meet. Also, unlike Jo, I adore Bass' curls. Just putting that out there.

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**iv. your face sounds familiar**

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The first time Jo lays eyes on Sebastian Monroe, all she does is compare him to Dean. Which is no news, really, since she does that comparison with every guy she meets unconsciously. That damn bastard is controlling her life despite being a thousand and some miles away.

But the brooding man that is watching her subtly from the corner of the diner is not Dean. Although he is as similar to the eldest Winchester as he is different.

He is younger, and not nearly as tall as either Dean or Sam, but that's expected and kinda cool, because the Winchesters are _scarily_ tall. And after her little heart-to-heart with not-Sam in Duluth, she prefers to steer clear of tall people's paths.

He has short dirty blond curls framing his face and despite the fact that they make him look even younger than he probably is, Jo thinks they make him look goddamn _stupid_. Although Darcy, the bubbly brunette that works shifts with her, says that he is a sergeant in the Marines and a strategist to boot, so his hair isn't really something to validly judge his character by.

His eyes prove her wrong as well, because those twin pools of blue betray vibrancy and intelligence — and there's something else there, too. Something darker that he manages to hide before she gets a clear glimpse. She doesn't want to admit it, but Jo thinks that she might have seen the expertly masked darkness of his eyes while looking at her own reflection in the mirror.

However, despite his physical unlikeness to Dean, Jo can tell that he is as much of an asshole as the eldest Winchester the moment he opens his mouth to actually talk to her for the first time.

"Can I get you anything else?" she asks as she places his order on the table, and it's the fifth time in a _week_ that he has sat in her section, so she might as well get over with whatever the fuck he has on his pea-sized brain.

"Yes," he says, with a glimmer in his eye that she immediately decides she doesn't like. Who the fuck says _yes_, anyway? Freaking _Jasperians_, that's who. "How about your name?"

Jo has to bite her tongue from spitting out an insult that will definitely have her fired from the sole place she has ever kind of liked working at. Because apparently Jasper has a thing for polite young women who shut the fuck up when they're getting hit on by dumbasses. "Sorry. That's not on the menu," she replies smugly, trying not to appear too proud of herself.

However, her victory is short-lived because Darcy picks out that exact moment to yell out her name, accompanied by a wave that translates into needing her in the back. Jo mentally curses her coworker to oblivion for this and swears that she will pummel her in good time.

She shifts her gaze towards the oh-so-irritating man and he has that awful goddamn smirk on his face that means she pretty much got owned in this round.

"Jolene?" he asks with genuine curiosity, and Jo doesn't bother to conceal her frown this time. Seriously, after the first ten times, it had gotten old.

"Just Jo," she snarls, drumming her fingers impatiently against the tray, because, honestly, this is no news to her. Random guys trying to make small talk and hit on her is no news because she grew up on the _Roadhouse_ for Christ's sake, and she has worked in a handful of bars and diners since she left.

He nods in acknowledgement and pauses to take a sip from his coffee. Jo takes this as her cue to saunter away, but she hasn't even taken a step when his voice picks up again. "So, are you new around here?"

She allows herself a mental groan. _Seriously?_

"What gave me away? The completely unfamiliar face?"

"The impoliteness," he corrects with a quirk on his lips that she bets has enchanted lots of unsuspected women in the past. A gesture that reminds her of Dean, but what else is new there. "Waitresses are usually well-mannered around here."

However, even though she may have lost the battle, Jo is not about to also lose the war by letting this asshole who's too much like Dean (but not really) outsmart her. "Domesticated is what I'd call them."

And then he _grins_, and Jo feels a sudden urge to strangle an innocent puppy.

"But not you, right?" He holds out his hand. "I'm Sebastian, by the way. Sebastian Monroe."

"Uh-huh," she replies with nil interest, completely disregarding the outstretched hand until he withdraws it. "Anything else?"

Sebastian shrugs noncommittally, shifting his gaze towards the world outside the windows. "No. That's all."

A dramatic pause, then.

"We'll have plenty of time tomorrow."

She's positively certain that he has an inner laughing fit as she stomps away with fury in her strides.


End file.
